Plasma surface engineering of low alloy steel

Abstract

The surface of low alloy steel (En40B) has been engineered in the plasma of a glow discharge via plasma nitriding and ion plating of titanium nitride (TiN) coatings on the nitrided substrates with the purpose of enhancing the surface properties and fatigue strength. The nitriding response of the steel has been accessed by the evaluation of phase composition, layer thickness, hardness profile, residual stresses and nitrogen and carbon distributions. The wear and fatigue characteristics of the plasma-nitrided steel have been investigated and simple models have been developed to describe the influence of such properties as depth and strength of the nitrided case on the fatigue limit and load-bearing capacity of the nitrided steel. In order to further improve the tribological properties and load-bearing capacity of the low alloy steel, a duplex plasma surface-engineering technique has been developed. This is achieved by plasma nitriding the steel first so as to produce a thick, strong subsurface and then depositing a thin, hard and wear-resistant TiN coating on the nitrided substrate by ion plating. Dry-sliding wear tests demonstrated that the duplex-treated steel, i.e. the TiN coating-nitrided steel composite, not only exhibited enhanced wear resistance over the as-nitrided steel (by a factor of 2–8) but also had much higher load-bearing capacity than the TiN coating on unnitrided steel. Optimization of the coating-substrate combination can be achieved by correct control of the plasma-nitriding, surface preparation and ion-plating processes.